


Doom is the House Without the Door

by acertainslantoflight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Ex Lovers, M/M, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Post-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Suicidal Thoughts, but love each other a whole lot, hurt and somewhat comfort, they don't know how to feel about each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28404927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acertainslantoflight/pseuds/acertainslantoflight
Summary: A house in London, 1995. Two broken people learning how to love again, even if the loving hurts.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Doom is the House Without the Door

**Author's Note:**

> A little snippet of Remus and Sirius post POA, in case you were looking for some angst.
> 
> A thank you to Natalie for always being so gracious with her time and beta reading <3
> 
> And to Emily Dickinson, who always provides me with such perfect titles.
> 
> Hope you enjoy! Infinite thanks for reading!
> 
> "I felt my life with both my hands  
> To see if it was there —  
> I held my spirit to the Glass,  
> To prove it possibler"
> 
> \- Emily Dickinson

‘I can’t fucking do this.’

They’re in the backyard of Grimmauld Place, grass browning and shrivelling in on itself like it’s losing a battle too long fought. The sun is too hot and oppressive, the heat contributing both to their anger and their exhaustion, feelings of which their supplies have already been overstocked. 

Remus holds Sirius like he’s a dying animal. He tries not to touch him, generally, as somewhat of a rule, but he never really was very good at those. It’s more likely a form of self-preservation or maybe masochism. Those things could never really be extricated from each other with Remus. 

‘You’ve done worse.’ They’re gripping each other like some sort of life raft, which Remus thinks is ironic given that they’ve been sinking each other for fifteen years. And they’ve been good at it too. They’re as good as drowned. 

‘You’re the only thing stopping me from thinking I’m already dead. I think I should already be dead.’ There’s so much desperation in Sirius’ voice it feels like a cracked rib, a shattering. 

‘Your life means too fucking much for that.’ And it’s true because Sirius’ mere existence has always been like oxygen to Remus, his lifeblood, even when there was poison in his veins. 

‘I just want this to be over.’ Sirius’ eyes are screwed shut, his teeth gritted and still frustratingly perfect and nails dig into the skin on Remus’ elbows and they won’t stop digging and digging and digging. Remus imagines the ground covered in blood, not for the first time. 

‘You don’t think you have too much to live for?’

‘No. What the fuck is there for me here?’ His eyes stay closed. His breathing is like a fish gulping oxygen, a desperate heartbeat. 

‘You want to look me in the eyes while you say that? You want to say my name at the end?’ 

‘Fuck Remus. You’d be fucking fine without me. You’d be better.’ 

‘Fuck you.’ And what have the last fifteen years been if not a constant torrent of those two words, maybe they’re a lifeline. Maybe they’re just something to say that isn’t ‘I love you’. 

‘You hate me. And you can’t just say you don’t when it’s convenient for you.’ 

‘You think this is about convenience? That’s what you want to make this about? You’re so fucking selfish.’ He feels like he’s choking and feels the lack of denial in his words like a knife to the throat. Both them have always been ready to make the cut. Stand back to watch the blood drain out. 

‘I’m telling you I want to die Remus.’ Fuck you fuck you fuck you I love you I love you I love you

‘I love you.’

‘I don’t know what you want me to hear when you say that.’ 

‘I want you to hear what I’m telling you.’ There’s a heart beating in the palm of his hands, a metallic taste in his mouth. And even then he doesn’t allow the thought of Sirius dying to form itself in his mind, he never has, even when he should have. 

‘I can’t believe you. You make it so hard for me to believe you.’ The ache that holds itself in Remus’ chest grows stronger, knocking against his ribcage, rattling around his lungs. ‘It’s easier to not believe it.’ 

Remus knows the feeling of things being easier not to believe. It’s easier until it’s not and then it’s a hundred times worse when they turn out to be the exact same awful type of true he always knew them to be. It was always easier to believe everything he ever had was never his at all, that getting more than he deserved was never going to be something he could hold on to and it was selfish to ever think it was. This, he supposes, is retribution. He was too greedy and now, here are the scraps, strewn out in front of him, rotten and begging him to eat. 

He wonders if this is what Sirius deserves too. He tries to make himself think he does, again, it softens the blow. Maybe he was always just that little bit too cruel, that little bit too unthinking. Carelessness has caught up to him and one prison has been exchanged for another and he’s digging his own grave in a backyard where everything is dying. How poetic. But when Remus lets himself consider it properly, he’s the one holding the shovel and Sirius never deserved any of it. 

‘I know. It’ll be true either way.’ Remus holds his next words in his mouth, tasting the ash of them. ‘And if you had to leave me last time, could you at least stay with me now?’ 

It’s purposely accusatory and Remus knows it’s the kind of thing Sirius hates him for. He’s kicking him while he’s down because it seems that he thrives too much on watching colour drain. His hands are numb. 

There’s a split second where he sees Sirius decide not to pick the fight. They’ve had it many times before anyway. One more might make them at least feel something for an afternoon but it’s always a calculation. How much are they craving the taste of blood? Can they last another day on rations of small talk and mourning? 

‘Yes. Yeah. God, I make myself sick, you know that? I’m so fucking desperate to do what you tell me. I can’t even tell if that’s what you want.’

Remus can’t tell either. There’s too much want to figure out what it’s all for. Nothing, probably, or something they lost at eighteen or something they’ll never get back to. It doesn’t really matter how much they do or don’t love each other. They’ll never have what they could’ve. They’ll never even have anything good. He wonders if it’s fate. If they were never going to, no matter what happened. Or maybe it’s just their shit luck, which it feels like they’ve hoarded. He supposes that in that case, they’re doing everyone else a service. This is the kind of misery he despises himself for. Sirius despises it too, he knows, even if he pretends he doesn’t. 

‘I just need you to stay alive. I can’t lose you. I just can’t.’ 

‘I’m not sure who you think you’re saving but don’t bother; I think you’re stuck here anyway.’ Sirius doesn’t point anywhere but Remus pictures a spot somewhere behind his ribcage. He imagines those bones snapping, sickeningly and then, methodically, he pieces them back together.

Sirius is stuck with him too, he feels him in every part of him, from something sticking to his skin, to a feeling deep in the marrow of his bones and he swings wildly between believing that’s deeply unfortunate and the best thing that’s ever happened to him. For now, it’s somewhere in the middle. The ache in his chest is something like anger and something like loving and nothing about any of this has ever been convenient but he doesn’t need it to be. He just needs something because in the past fifteen years, he’s gotten too used to nothing. 

‘Okay. Good.’ And he touches Sirius like he’s something precious and not to be broken because of course he is. He takes in the patterns of his skin, the way his breath feels against his own, the movement of his heart and he loves and loves and loves and suffocates on it.

**Author's Note:**

> I always wanted to tell this part of Remus and Sirius' story but could never quite figure out how. This finally happened late at night and even though I didn't initially intend to post it, something about it felt right.


End file.
